One month after announcing ambitious plans to dig a 50-km-long shipping canal 100 km west of the Bosphorus Strait, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s scheme is being dismissed by some as election grandstanding designed to gain leverage for Turkey in talks with Russia to secure commitments of crude for the languishing Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline project.

The grand canal scheme, which was announced with fanfare on April 27, in advance of Turkey’s general election on June 12, calls for construction of the 120-meter-wide, 25-meter-deep commercial shipping channel -- large enough accommodate supertankers of up to 300,000 dwt – at a cost estimated between $10 - $40 billion. The canal would divert traffic from the Bosphorus Straits, the sole maritime link between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.